13/06/2026
Easy to overlook how much rest and sleep our dogs actually need … thank you to The Ladies The Ladies Working Dog Group for this excellent post.
There's a question our experts get asked a lot, and it rarely arrives as a question about sleep. It comes in as "why does my dog lose his head every evening" or "why is training falling apart on the last walk of the day."
And often, somewhere in the answer, the expert asks how much rest the dog is actually getting.
The numbers still catch me out. An adolescent dog needs fourteen to sixteen hours a day. A puppy needs more than that.
And our breeds are the worst at taking it, because the drive we love doesn't come with an off switch. A spaniel will keep going long past the point where a calmer dog would have taken himself off to bed, so the rest doesn't happen unless we make it happen.
When it doesn't, the tiredness comes out sideways. Mouthing, zoomies, selective hearing, usually at the exact moment you've sat down with a cup of tea.
These figures cover sleep (and chilled out rest can count here too) .
Save this, or screenshot ands stick them on the fridge, and have an honest look at what your dog actually gets.
And if this was useful, the sleep numbers are only half the picture.
What your dog needs from training changes by age too. The Gap Map shows you where your dog is now and what to work on next. Comment LEVEL and I'll send it over.
Tell me: what time does your dog's witching hour hit?
